When The Sun Goes Down
by Katherine Elaine
Summary: The days Dean and Castiel spend defending their lives in purgatory are long, cold, and thick with tension. What happens when the sun goes down, however, is a completely different story. Post-season seven AU. Rated M for later chapters.


**A/N: Eeee, here we go! I haven't written anything in a while, so hopefully this turns out okay. It's a bit longer than what I usually write, so hopefully I don't sound too ramble-y. I'd just like to say here that I'll be co-authoring this story; my boyfriend and I are taking turns writing this and we'll see how it turns out. Hopefully not as awkward as that sounds!**

**Supernatural and its characters are not mine. If they were, I'd probably be a lot richer and, well, not writing on FanFiction, you know?**

**-K.**

* * *

"_Careful_," Dean urges in a loud whisper, looking over his shoulder at the angel, whose feet crunch the dried, fallen leaves he treads on. "You're gonna get us caught."

It's late morning, nearing midday, and the sunlight shimmering through the trees does nothing to assist the hunter and his friend in camouflaging themselves. Although the leaves that blanket the ground are crumbling and dead, the trees that surround them are alive and healthy, small buds continually sprouting overhead. The lush greenery can't hide them, though, from the nameless, previously undiscovered creatures that are undoubtedly on their tail.

Castiel inhales deeply, trying only not to lose what little patience for the older Winchester brother he has left. "Dean, I don't think—"

Dean spins on his heel, giving Cas a dagger-like glare. "You wanna know what I think, Cas?" It's a rhetorical question, Cas knows from the tone, and he bites the insides of his cheeks to prevent himself from speaking. Dean continues, "I think if you wanna get out alive, you should shut it and listen."

Taking orders from Dean, the supposed 'fearless leader', was not dissimilar to a child obeying its parent; his tone is condescending, but his words heed both warning and concern. The aftermath of disobedience is horrifying, though, so the angel does as he's told by Dean, who he swears becomes more sociopathic every day.

The hunter stops ten feet from the shore of a wide river, the window through the trees looking out onto a high cliff across the water. His eyes narrow, skeptically surveying the area for predators of any kind. "You hear that?"

"What? I don't hear—"

"Exactly. It's…" _Too quiet_, Dean finishes in his own thoughts. And it is; aside from the occasional breeze that rustles the trees or a cicada in a nearby shrub, there's nothing but a thick, discomforting silence. He holds up his index and middle finger, motioning them in a small circle before pointing them to the path just behind Castiel's left shoulder, signaling wordlessly to head that way. The narrow footpath is only wide enough for one person, so Castiel walks behind Dean. It's well-traveled, judging by the way the plants have been trampled and flattened against the ground over time and now simply ceased to regrow. What seems like a small eternity later, it leads them to a similar clearing, more shaded and enclosed, the water no longer visible.

The further they venture in, in fact, the darker it gets, and Dean's not sure if the tree cover is just becoming denser or if it's getting late or what, but it gives him and Castiel these eerie chill and Cas pipes up, "Dean, we should turn back."

"Man, if we turn back, we'll never find our way out of—" He stops mid-sentence as the crunching of leaves behind him is tripled, maybe even quadrupled and hollers, "_Cas, get down!_"

As Dean turns, he draws a long, silver blade from the inside of his jacket, narrowly missing Cas' head. The angel ducks down, dodging Dean's blow to one of the enemies and attempting to maneuver past him, but falls. As he fumbles to stand back up again, he's confronted with long, pointed teeth—fangs—belonging to a girl that can't be more than twelve years old and freezes.

Dean's shouting something at him but the words are lost on Cas, and they're distant, unintelligible echoes in his mind as the girl stares him in the face, anticipating his every movement. Cas' shoulder twitches, a muscle spasm, and she lunges for the offending limb.

"_Dean!"_

The hunter whirls around as he responds and all but throws the blade at the attacker's throat. He head rolls a couple of feet and the dead weight of her body collapses next to Castiel, who looks on in terror as if he's never seen the Winchesters hunt before, his eyes watching the jaw until it stills finally. "That was…"

"A vampire," Dean tells him simply, extending a hand that Castiel accepts. "Well, a few of 'em. Did it get you?"

Cas looks around and sees two more corpses in similar states behind Dean and, using Dean's hand as leverage, pulls himself to his feet. "N-no, just caught me off guard."

"Well, stay on your toes from now on." The blue-eyed man only nods, knowing that after two months of being here, he should have known better.

_Two months_, the angel recalls, and aside from Dean and the things they'd "taken care of", he's had no contact. Angels were never much for socializing, so besides Sam's absence, this is exactly what Castiel was accustomed to on Earth, with the exception that usually he was on the run from his own family rather than other creatures.

Dean leans backward against a tree and his knees bend, allowing his torso to slide down until he's sitting, knees curled to his chest, and tucks his large backpack behind his head and closes his eyes, letting his thoughts drift away like Castiel's. Thoughts of Sam and Kevin, of Crowley and Meg. Lisa, Ben. The Impala, cheap motel rooms, fast food that would one day more than likely give him a heart attack if he ever got back. Warm showers. Flushing toilets. All were luxuries now, and things he'd taken for granted, seeming to mock him and haunt his thoughts from another world altogether and his eyes open again. They fix themselves on Castiel, who gathers bundles of leaves and twigs, arranging them into an artsy display shaped like a tepee.

Cas stops only to accept the lighter that Dean's suddenly holding out from behind him and after a moment of fiddling with the contraption, figures it out and lights himself a small fire.

"Some place, huh?" Dean asks.

There's a short silence from Castiel as he attempts to stop his teeth from chattering, the sound overpowering the crackling orange flare before them, glowing in the cold purgatory night.

"Some place."


End file.
